From the Financial Crisis to Wise Management: The Relevance of the ‘Return to Aristotle’

Since 2007 a number of countries have been confronted with a multi-faceted financial crisis whose outcome is still unknown. The unwinding of this early twenty-first century has been marked by an ineluctable gearing: the sub-primes episode has entailed the threat of a collapse of the banking system, the disruption of the commodities market, the risk of a sovereign debt default in several European countries and the stagnation — then the recession — of some developed economies. This ruthless mechanism throws American citizens onto the street, brings governments down in Rome and in Athens, and plunges people in various countries of the South into famine, while the effects of climate change are increasingly visible. In many parts of our planet, it seems that business, financial markets and globalisation engender backward movements and growing conflicts, whereas the Age of Enlightenment had promised progress and perpetual peace.